ATM reprogrammed to deliver more cash

Is this even possible?

[eelixduppy]

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Police were looking for a man who reprogrammed a gas station ATM to give out four times as much money as it should.

[news.yahoo.com...]

I wish I stumbled upon that ATM within those 9 days ;)

[jatar_k]

No one noticed until nine days later, when a customer told the clerk that the machine was giving out more money than it should.

lmao, honest but it seems there were probably many that weren't

>> Is this even possible?

I don't see why not. A friend of mine used to be a programmer for ATM machines, they never seemed very complicated and he could do some very interesting things

[bird]

A prepaid ATM card? Never heard of such a thing. What's the point?

But it was clearly not smart to leave the reprogrammed machine as it was. Much better to revert it to its normal state after getting what you want...

[Old_Honky]

A prepaid ATM card? Never heard of such a thing. What's the point?

Well you could use it instead of travellers cheques. i.e. fill the card with the amount of money you want to spend then if it gets stolen that's all you loose. I presume you would not be allowed to overdraw the card and it would not be linked to a bank account.

Also you could use it to give money to your kids in a (reasonably) secure manner without lending them your bank card so they can clear you out.

[RonPK]

> Is this even possible?

I've once seen the infamous Blue Screen of Death on an ATM, so at least some of them run on Windows...

[akmac]

One could be programmed to give out more money. More likely though, the cash was improperly loaded. Put twenties in the ten stack and you've got a problem...

[DamonHD]

Yeah, but just try loading forties instead, or spending them... %-P

[RonPK]

Wired reports that ATMs can be controlled fully over the keypad and that it is easy to obtain manuals and default passwords. They're expecting long queues at many ATMs ;)

<snip>

[edited by: lawman at 5:57 pm (utc) on Sep. 21, 2006]
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